Michelle Obama's toxic veggie nightmare: White House organic garden polluted with sludge

daily finance ^ | 7/31/2009 | Alex Salkever

[milwguy]

When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle's organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer

[IrishPennant]

I was just being facitious....but look for the “but Bush never cleaned it up” response to come up sometime :)

[Reagan69]

Poor Barry, he just can’t get a break.

[delphirogatio]

Irony is a beuatiful thing.

I smell an allegory in this story too!

[dforest]

Sludge inside and out at the WH anymore.

[justrepublican]

This is such a non-story. Where are the anti-birthers on this, complaining about the wasted time spent on such a non-issue.

[McGruff]

July 30, 2009 — Organically grown food is no more nutritious than conventionally grown food when it comes to the amount of certain important nutrients, according to a new review of published studies.

“We wanted to answer the question, ‘Is there any evidence that organic food is nutritionally superior to conventionally grown food?’” says the study’s lead author, Alan D. Dangour, PhD, a public health nutritionist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “The answer is no. Organic food is not nutritionally superior to conventional food.”

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090730/organic-foods-not-more-nutritious

[tacticalogic]

Sounds like Michelle found her excuse to bail out of tending a garden after she got her photo ops in.

[Neoliberalnot]

Hey kids, how bout some crap on a shingle? Good enough for the obama brats.

[1951Boomer]

There are SO many rich metaphors in this story that I don’t know where to begin!

[Clintons Are White Trash]

It is always recommended that you have your soil tested before installing a garden. How do you know the best way to fertilize if you don't?? In this instance, with the building an grounds as old as they are (i.e. developed) I'm suprised this wasn't a given.

Tsk Tsk, seems to be the way this administration approaches everything. Pass the bill and worry about what's in it later - plant the garden, worry about what's in the soil later. Idiots!

CAWT - Master Gardener :)

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

that’s how we have a product called Milorganite

You ^do^ know what the process is that creates Milorganite, right?

[freeandfreezing]

No doubt the Clintons used the sludge-based product because all through the 1990s the EPA was pushing sludge as a good thing. I had to listen to more than one bureaucrat explaining how harmless sewage sludge was, or how "there is no record in New Hampshire of anyone ever getting sick from septage" - like they forgot what caused all those epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, etc. years ago.

You'd be astonished if you read the 1990s EPA material promoting the safety of sludge and septage. Basically, its really harmless stuff they say.

Of course anyone who has ever been near a bucket of the stuff knows better.

Which is why believing what the government says can be very hazardous to your health and well being. You can be sure that once the EPA finally realizes that spreading sludge contaminates the ground with lead and other heavy metals that they'll turn right around and sue the landowners to clean it up. And the FDA will ban produce grown on fields that have been spread with sludge or septage - unless you spend a fortune testing the produce.

[Free State Four]

but look for the “but Bush never cleaned it up”

Bush was too busy trying to kill all the Native Americans in New Mexico with arsenic. Remember? Thanks to the incredible reduction in tolerable arsenic levels in drinking water instituted by the Clinton administration on its way out the door. The scm spent months accusing Bush of murder.

[The Sons of Liberty]

The Obamas seem to have plenty of money to toss about. - when it's TAXPAYER's Money!

[LADY J]

WOW!! More great 'feel good' ideas from the gang that can't shoot straight. Might have have been a good idea to use some common sense to test the ground BEFORE the garden was planted in a lawn area that was polluted by the Clinton administration.

YES!! Let's turn OUR health care over to these experts!!

I'm remembering the big PR photo-op showing Michelle serving all those little kids lunch, with the food they grew in their garden.

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[Freedom2specul8]

First thing I thought of was all the kids who ate the vegies, and now we find the clintons are responsible? The irony...

[mikey_hates_everything]

Can these people do anything right (not politically, anyway)?

[ExTxMarine]

“YES!! Let’s turn OUR health care over to these experts!!”

Yep, and just like this debacle, about a year after it is in place the “new and improved” health care system will be loosing money to fraud, abuse and stupid mismanagement. And they will say, well the health care system should have been corrected by the Bush Admin - those Eeeeevil Bush people! They might even throw in a reference to Cheney - just for good measure!

[HereInTheHeartland]

“First thing I thought of was all the kids who ate the vegies, and now we find the clintons are responsible? The irony...”

Just another way that the words “toxic” and “sludge” can be linked to the Clintons.